


Midwives of Egypt

by LAntoniou



Category: Hebrews, Magical Realism - Fandom, Midrash - Fandom, Midwives - Fandom, Puah - Fandom, Shifra - Fandom, The Ten Commandments, Torah - Fandom
Genre: Exodus from Egypt, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:56:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28265040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LAntoniou/pseuds/LAntoniou
Summary: Two midwives are the hidden heroes of the Exodus story. A sort of modern retelling.
Kudos: 1





	Midwives of Egypt

"Do you really think Pharaoh listens to 1010-WINS?"

Puah had a point. I didn’t think he did, being a god on earth and all. Surely, though, he could just order someone to get him a traffic report.

"Stuck in traffic was the best you could come up with?" I asked.

"I’m ready to hear your bright idea," she said, just slightly testy. I forgave her because first, she was my sister, and second because when I’m expecting to be executed, I find I can easily let little things like this go.

"We’ll be fed to the crocodiles," I sighed.

"Shifra! Puah! What a surprise! Why has no one brought my sisters refreshment?"

Menes swept into the room like the Nile overflowing, full of life, gravid with potential and chaos. She was ever like this, since we first met at the Pi-Ramses Medical Academy. (Specifically in the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg School for Midwives, Doulas and Herb Women.) That was how we were sisters. Our shared blood was from the women we tended to, not from our mothers.

I explained we were waiting on Pharaoh’s pleasure and she sighed and sat with us as dates and figs were brought. She knew more than we of waiting in the palaces of the royal – she was the official midwife to the women of the elite, whiles we tended only to the laborers and slaves.

"And how fare the mothers of Goshen?" she asked as she pressed sweet dates upon us. They would suit as a last meal, I thought.

"They…increase," Puah said.

Yes. That was the problem. They were increasing. And we had been ordered to do the unspeakable. An order we could not obey, despite the fear of becoming crocodile nourishment.

"Ah, if only I could say as much here," Menes cried. She launched into the ripe gossip of Pharaoh’s court. Normally, we would eagerly listen. The lifestyles of the rich and famous is a popular topic among the poor and despairing. She did not seem to notice we were distracted and we did not interrupt her as demitasse cups of powerful Egyptian coffee appeared. Gossip and fine dates, rich coffee… we would die having lived for a moment as if we were wealthy.

Until Puah stopped the flood of words from our sister's mouth.

"Wait," she said, her eyes wide. "Did you say Natiri's man did not know how the child is brought forth? Was he not with her?"

"Oh never!" Menes said with a laugh. "This is a palace, one of many. No husband keeps an wife by him when she is breeding. I forget how it is among the other folk sometimes. But the men here send their wives to far away chambers and console themselves with the comely slaves if they have no concubines. And even those are sent away when they grow fat with a child. It is a horror to them, the way women bleed but do not die and bring forth life in a river of blood. They call it a sacred mystery and speak of curses and danger to their manhood. So they leave their mothers and girl children to us, my sisters! Well, to me and my interns anyway."

Puah looked at me. I stared back at her.

In Goshen and the other slums, modesty was too expensive for the folk we saw. They lived crowded together in shamefully kept public housing, each family overlapping on another and always a stranger welcomed to wrap themselves in a cloak on the floor. Even if men wished to be away to spare themselves the fear and worry of watching their women bring forth life in blood and pain…no one could ever say they were unfamiliar with it. Many a man held his wife as she placed her feet upon the stones. Many a brother held his baby sister as she opened her eyes for the first time. And all knew the moon’s courses as some women drew away from their men for their sacred time.

We gazed into each other’s eyes as Menes kept talking.

"The midwives to the Hebrews!" Called the major domo. "Approach Pharaoh and tremble! Behold the god upon this earth and harken to his commands!"

We stood and kissed Menes and walked in holding hands, to kneel and bow our heads before Pharaoh. But we feared him no longer.

The Hebrew women are vigorous and strong. This is true. And so we told him.

And their God is stronger yet.


End file.
